Synology NAS for Veeam Backup Repository
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I have been using a Synology NAS (first, an 1812+, currently an 1813+) as a Veeam backup repository for about 5 years and was about to pull the trigger on the Synology DS3617xs until I saw last weeks' Veeam Community Forums Digest. If you aren't familiar with it, Anton Gostev (Vice President, Product Management at Veeam Software) sends a brief weekly message about things that mostly relate to Veeam, VMware and Hyper-V but also other things that he finds interesting. Anyway, he mentioned a QNAP data corruption issue and how low end NAS devices are not recommended. Excerpt here:
"Here's one more nail into the coffin of low end NAS usage > QNAP critical data corruption. Indeed, we had quite a few customers impacted by this issue – we just could not "separate" this particular one from a bunch of other issues causing corrupted backups with this sort of devices. As I keep repeating at my breakout sessions, usage of low end NAS is by far the number one reason of corrupt backups and failed recoveries that we're seeing in support. This is why for cheap backup targets, we've always been recommending using a physical Windows or Linux server with a bunch of disks instead."
He was referencing this - https://www.crn.com.au/news/qnap-keeps-quiet-on-critical-flaw-that-corrupts-data-468923
I started questioning this statement and found many posts by Veeam reps on SW that don't seem to have any qualms with them and in the SMB, Synology (also QNAP and ReadyNAS) are very popular for this use case. I have never experienced an issue with mine except I did have a drive fail when a larger than normal backup occurred and maxed the storage capacity. I replaced the drive and it rebuilt just fine. I am using OBR10 (not RAID5 like the QNAP article mentioned).
I also have external (separate from Veeam) tasks that run copies to an AWS S3 bucket to get the backups offsite almost immediately after the jobs finish. The only one I don't do that with is the "huge" file server, that is currently 2.4TB for a full backup. I also manually copy all backups to USB hard drives every weekday and take them offsite every weeknight. I do this because it would take quite awhile to download all the backups from S3 in the event of a disaster.
Should I reconsider my plan and start looking for an actual server to fill with local storage as my next backup repository?
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Not that I can't agree with the Anton there, but the issue lies with incorrectly setting up your environment. The issue in that article pertains to a bug specifically in QNAP's OS. Not every NAS is running the same thing.
If anything Anton should flat out have his team stop support QNAP because of the issue, not lament all "low end" NAS as to risky for backup.
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Few thoughts here, one is that this is a QNAP issue and nothing to do with NAS. That he comes up with a QNAP corporate messaging problem and then related it to the entire storage field is inappropriate. QNAP has never been a good company or product, but that's not a reflection on other companies. That's like avoiding Ford because Chevy treated you badly. That would be a completely illogical response, yet that is what he just did.
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Synology, ReadyNAS, QNAP and others are just vendor-managed Linux servers. If you don't maintain your Linux server, you'll be in similar boats. I'd not use QNAP, but I'd not avoid good vendors in this range.
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As someone who is a direct competitor with Synology and ReadyNAS here (because I run @restoronix which makes Veeam appliances) I could not with a straight face say that there is anything wrong with the good vendors here. Good products and good support. Are there reasons to go with something higher end, yes. Is it because those products are unreliable, poorly supported or going to corrupt your data? No.
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Thanks for the replies, @DustinB3403 and @scottalanmiller - I would have just chalked it up to a QNAP problem and using RAID5 (in this scenario made no sense to me) but like you said, he mentions an entire "category" of technology.
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@scottalanmiller said in Synology NAS for Veeam Backup Repository:
As someone who is a direct competitor with Synology and ReadyNAS here (because I run @restoronix which makes Veeam appliances) I could not with a straight face say that there is anything wrong with the good vendors here. Good products and good support. Are there reasons to go with something higher end, yes. Is it because those products are unreliable, poorly supported or going to corrupt your data? No.
I just looked up restoronix (cool name, BTW) and went to the site but my Latin is a little rusty
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@wrx7m said in Synology NAS for Veeam Backup Repository:
@scottalanmiller said in Synology NAS for Veeam Backup Repository:
As someone who is a direct competitor with Synology and ReadyNAS here (because I run @restoronix which makes Veeam appliances) I could not with a straight face say that there is anything wrong with the good vendors here. Good products and good support. Are there reasons to go with something higher end, yes. Is it because those products are unreliable, poorly supported or going to corrupt your data? No.
I just looked up restoronix (cool name, BTW) and went to the site but my Latin is a little rusty
Where did you find Latin? I just went through the page, don't see any.
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@scottalanmiller said in Synology NAS for Veeam Backup Repository:
@wrx7m said in Synology NAS for Veeam Backup Repository:
@scottalanmiller said in Synology NAS for Veeam Backup Repository:
As someone who is a direct competitor with Synology and ReadyNAS here (because I run @restoronix which makes Veeam appliances) I could not with a straight face say that there is anything wrong with the good vendors here. Good products and good support. Are there reasons to go with something higher end, yes. Is it because those products are unreliable, poorly supported or going to corrupt your data? No.
I just looked up restoronix (cool name, BTW) and went to the site but my Latin is a little rusty
Where did you find Latin? I just went through the page, don't see any.
https://restoronix.com/explore - This page. The headings are English but there is no real content underneath.
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@wrx7m said in Synology NAS for Veeam Backup Repository:
@scottalanmiller said in Synology NAS for Veeam Backup Repository:
@wrx7m said in Synology NAS for Veeam Backup Repository:
@scottalanmiller said in Synology NAS for Veeam Backup Repository:
As someone who is a direct competitor with Synology and ReadyNAS here (because I run @restoronix which makes Veeam appliances) I could not with a straight face say that there is anything wrong with the good vendors here. Good products and good support. Are there reasons to go with something higher end, yes. Is it because those products are unreliable, poorly supported or going to corrupt your data? No.
I just looked up restoronix (cool name, BTW) and went to the site but my Latin is a little rusty
Where did you find Latin? I just went through the page, don't see any.
https://restoronix.com/explore - This page. The headings are English but there is no real content underneath.
AH, not on the main page. Looking into those.
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@wrx7m don't you know to use google translate. . . .
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@dustinb3403 - I am going to try it and see what happens lol
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Just gibberish...
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Same issue here @scottalanmiller
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@wrx7m said in Synology NAS for Veeam Backup Repository:
Thanks for the replies, @DustinB3403 and @scottalanmiller - I would have just chalked it up to a QNAP problem and using RAID5 (in this scenario made no sense to me) but like you said, he mentions an entire "category" of technology.
It is not a QNAP problem. Just like Anton said, it's a NAS problem...
Go watch his VeeamON 2017 preso, he spent sometime talking about why this is a problem.
https://www.veeam.com/veeamon/free-sessions?wvideo=29o75n2ygf -
@fateknollogee said in Synology NAS for Veeam Backup Repository:
@wrx7m said in Synology NAS for Veeam Backup Repository:
Thanks for the replies, @DustinB3403 and @scottalanmiller - I would have just chalked it up to a QNAP problem and using RAID5 (in this scenario made no sense to me) but like you said, he mentions an entire "category" of technology.
It is not a QNAP problem. Just like Anton said, it's a NAS problem...
In what way is it a NAS problem? The problem affects servers, NAS, SAN, and everything else exactly the same. In the example, it is RAID 5 that is the issue and is literally just the end user didn't implement a RAID system while knowing how storage works. What they are talking about in the article is URE and NAS is not a factor.
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@fateknollogee said in Synology NAS for Veeam Backup Repository:
@wrx7m said in Synology NAS for Veeam Backup Repository:
Thanks for the replies, @DustinB3403 and @scottalanmiller - I would have just chalked it up to a QNAP problem and using RAID5 (in this scenario made no sense to me) but like you said, he mentions an entire "category" of technology.
It is not a QNAP problem. Just like Anton said, it's a NAS problem...
Go watch his VeeamON 2017 preso, he spent sometime talking about why this is a problem.
https://www.veeam.com/veeamon/free-sessions?wvideo=29o75n2ygfHere is the quote: "He found that if a drive fails in a RAID 5 array, the QNAP device will resort to recalculating the missing data, causing errors in calculations and corrupting data. If the failed drive is replaced, it will use the same calculations to repopulate the drive with corrupted data." If the errors come from URE, then the issue affects all systems regardless of what they are. If the issue was a firmware bug, then it is QNAP specific. Nothing in the article would lead to any correlation that "NAS are riskier" than other things.
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Later in the article: "QNAP issued a firmware update in April that fixed the flaw. However, the vendor made no mention of the corruption flaw in its release notes."
Given that they were able to fix it, we know that it can't be a NAS issue.
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@scottalanmiller said in Synology NAS for Veeam Backup Repository:
@fateknollogee said in Synology NAS for Veeam Backup Repository:
@wrx7m said in Synology NAS for Veeam Backup Repository:
Thanks for the replies, @DustinB3403 and @scottalanmiller - I would have just chalked it up to a QNAP problem and using RAID5 (in this scenario made no sense to me) but like you said, he mentions an entire "category" of technology.
It is not a QNAP problem. Just like Anton said, it's a NAS problem...
In what way is it a NAS problem? The problem affects servers, NAS, SAN, and everything else exactly the same. In the example, it is RAID 5 that is the issue and is literally just the end user didn't implement a RAID system while knowing how storage works. What they are talking about in the article is URE and NAS is not a factor.
How 'bout you just go watch the video?
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@fateknollogee said in Synology NAS for Veeam Backup Repository:
@wrx7m said in Synology NAS for Veeam Backup Repository:
Thanks for the replies, @DustinB3403 and @scottalanmiller - I would have just chalked it up to a QNAP problem and using RAID5 (in this scenario made no sense to me) but like you said, he mentions an entire "category" of technology.
It is not a QNAP problem. Just like Anton said, it's a NAS problem...
Go watch his VeeamON 2017 preso, he spent sometime talking about why this is a problem.
https://www.veeam.com/veeamon/free-sessions?wvideo=29o75n2ygfI'm in that audience for that video
